After a sizzling hot figure from ADP on private sector jobs created, the weekly jobless claims from the U.S. Labor Department came in with a drop of 15,000 to 372,000 for the week.

Bloomberg had the consensus target at 375,000 versus a preliminary figure of 381,000 reported a week ago. That figure was just revised higher to 387,000. What investors will care about is that this is now almost two months in a row of sub-400K on the weekly jobless claims. These still need to get closer to 300,000 on a historical basis before economists will say that the firing waves are over.

The four-week average fell by 3,250 to 373,250 and the army of unemployed measured by the continuing jobless claims fell by another 22,000 to 3.595 million but that figure has a one week lag on its reporting.

Today’s news from the Labor Department is moderately better than expected, but it is pale in comparison to the jump reported by ADP.